Worth My Time to Even Apply?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I'm not sure which category (reach/match/safety) these schools fit into for me. If you could let me know what schools I have a decent chance at I'd appreciate it. Also, any tips for getting my SAT CR and SAT W scores up?</p>

<p>Schools:
1) Amherst College
2) Bowdoin College
3) Wesleyan University
4) Carleton College
5) Northwestern University
6) Macalester College
7) Brown University
8) University of Chicago
9) University of Wisconsin-Madison
10) Northeastern University
11) Beloit College
12) Carthage College</p>

<p>Other Potential Schools I Need to do More Research On (I want to limit the apps to 13 at the max, so I won't be applying to many of these):
NYU Gallatin, Swarthmore, WUSTL, Oberlin, DePaul, UNC, UPitt, Rhodes, Goucher, Grinnell, St. Olaf, Knox, Tufts, William and Mary, UMissouri, UVirginia, Butler, and Columbia.</p>

<p>My Stats:
3.97 UW GPA out of 4.0
2 AP Classes out of 2 available, 3 AP Self-Studies, Plan on 3 more self-studies next year
Ranked 11th out of 100
SAT M800, CR580 (hoping for 700+), W630 (hoping for 700+), T2010 (hoping for 2200+)
ACT28 (hoping for 32+)
SAT II's- ML2 was a 610 (hoping for 800) and USH was a 680 (hoping for 750+)</p>

<p>My EC's:
-4 years Varsity Cross Country, 4 years Varsity Wrestling, and 4 years Varsity Track & Field
-4 years and 8 shows in School Theater
-4 years Music (Concert Band, Polka Band, Pep Band, Marching Band, Jazz Band, Advanced Choir, Vocal Jazz, All-Conference Choir)
-Boy Scouts (Life Scout, working on Eagle Project)
-4 years Math Team (captain two years)
-Cycling Team (outside of school)
-ODP Soccer (outside of school)</p>

<p>Possible Unique-ness:
-Officer of a student group at my school that stood up against a new grading system that was introduced in my school that many teachers, parents, and students found to decrease student learning and decrease teacher effectiveness (our group spent over 100 hours researching education systems and presenting information at several school board meetings, the school board eventually decided to let teacher's choose whether they wanted to follow the system or not)
-Active volunteer for numerous political campaigns/recalls in the past six months (more than 150 hours)
-Journalism published on internet sites and local newspapers, attending AAJA J Camp
-Have been a vegetarian for 11+ years and vegan for about 4 years
-Play Accordion and founded school Polka Band</p>

<p>I plan on retaking the ACT in September, SAT in October, and SAT II's in November. I plan on applying RD to all the schools except EA at Northeastern, Beloit, and Carthage (already applied). Also, I think my essays should be alright, as well as the Teacher Rec's; although, I'm not sure about the Counselor Rec.</p>

<p>Thanks for your help! :) If you provide me a link, I'll chance you back.</p>

2

<p>Any thoughts? I want to make sure I have the right balance of safeties, matches, and reaches and am open to suggestions of other schools that might be good fits for me.</p>

3

<p>1) Amherst College- reach
2) Bowdoin College- reach/match
3) Wesleyan University- reach
4) Carleton College- reach
5) Northwestern University- reach
6) Macalester College- match
7) Brown University- reach
8) University of Chicago- reach
9) University of Wisconsin-Madison- match/safety
10) Northeastern University- safety
11) Beloit College- safety
12) Carthage College- safety</p>

<p>You have a lot of reaches because of your standardized test scores. A 28 ACT and 2010 SAT are a little weak for the elite colleges you’re looking at. Amherst is just has hard if not harder than Harvard to get into. Your GPA is excellent and your APs are great considering your school offers so few of them. Admissions officers will especially love that. Your ECs are also fairly strong and will help. Really the only concern I have is your standardized test scores because they are below par at the elite schools you are looking at and the problem with assuming that you will do as well as you anticipate is that students often times overestimate their abilities. I can’t just assume that you will jump over 200 points on your SAT. Get those scores up and you will have a realistic chance at all of the colleges you’re looking at. One more thing is you should definitely apply to Grinnell, it is an excellent school and my cousin, who went there, said it was a great experience. Good luck!</p>

4

<p>With your current scores:</p>

<p>Amherst - Reach
Bowdoin - High Match/Low Reach
Wesleyan - High Match/Low Reach
Carleton - High Match
Northwestern - Low Reach/Reach
Macalester - Match/High Match
Brown - Reach
Chicago - Reach
Wisconsin - Match/High Match
Northeastern - Low Match/Match
Beloit - In/Low Match
Carthage - In</p>

5

<p>You might want to look at Wake Forest/Holy Cross if you don’t get your scores up because they are testing optional. While you never know what’s gonna happen, it will be very tough to get into elite colleges with a 28 ACT, shoot for 33/2200 to have a strong chance. </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1177043-do-i-have-enough-good-ecs-ill-chance-back.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1177043-do-i-have-enough-good-ecs-ill-chance-back.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

6

<p>Get your scores up and you shouldn’t have any problems at most of them. (Although for the more competitive ones - Amherst, Brown, Chicago, one thing that will count against you is that many people applying to those will have had much more rigorous courseloads with more APs, but you’ll still be competitive there.)</p>

7

<p>Get your SAT W and/or CR up by 100 points and you’re good to wherever you want to go.</p>

8

<p>No matter what, apply to whichever schools you want! You have nothing to lose besides the application fee! “you miss 100% of the shots you never take”- Wayne Gretzky. And you never know! I knew someone with a 3.5 (W) that got into Yale! But I read her essays and they were quite exceptional. She just wrote about her passions and aspirations, and if you do the same, you never know :)</p>